Friday, December 27, 2013

Meet the Parents: Mobility and Locality

One of my favorite "year in review" posts for digital marketing came fromKaren McGrane, a brilliant content strategist. She compiled a list ofmobile web statistics(sources found within) that are sure to knock the socks off of digital marketing managers across the globe. A sample:

91 percent of American adults own a mobile phone.

56 percent of American adults own a smartphone.

63 percent of mobile phone owners use their phones to access the Internet.

Amazon, Wikipedia, and Facebook all see about 20 percent mobile traffic.

77 percent of mobile searches take place at home or at work.

For the purposes of this article, one statistic that stood out in particular:

46 percent of shoppers report using their phone to research local products and services.

Nearlyone in twoshoppers for local products and services are using their phone. If your mobile game isn't on lock, you are essentially neglecting or potentially insulting half of your target demographic.

Finding resources to make a mobile-friendly website in 2014 isn't a simply a good idea, a high-priority or mission critical task. It is essential to the longevity and profitability of your business. Period. With sad statistics showing most B2B,Fortune 100andconsumer brandsfailing to stay up to snuff, mobile could be a fantastic opening for your business to slay your competition.

In November, I had the opportunity to listen to author and Google Digital Marketing Evangelist Avinash Kaushikspeak at Think Quebec about the impact of mobile on search marketing. He pulled up example after example of terrible mobile search experiences. He drew attention to huge brands that were throwing away search traffic – often after creating demand for a particular product on a different marketing channel, and then now showing up in search.

"The web is so good at destroying things. If you suck – you die," he said.

Kaushik's words ring no less true for local SEO. If you aren't performing for 46 percent of your potential customers, you suck. And you will die – or at least your business might.

1. +Local Page Criteria

Physical address in city of search

Proper business categories

Proximity of address to city center (centroid)

Local area code on +Local Page

2. On-site factors

Domain Authority of website

City/state/province in +Local landing page title

HTML/schema NAP matches +Local page NAP

Page Authority of landing page specified in +Local

Product/service keyword in website URL

3. Off-site factors

Quantity of structured citations (IYPs, data aggregators)

Quality/authority of structured citations

Quality/authority of unstructured citations

Quality/authority of inbound links to domain

4. Review factors

Quantity of native +Local reviews

Product/service keywords in reviews

Quantity of third-party reviews

Keyword(s) location in reviews

Velocity of native +Local reviews

(Note: velocity refers to the speed at which a local listing or a website accumulates outside references, such as links, citations, reviews, or check-ins.)